Cry, Little Sister
by The Sparrow's Wing
Summary: Emily is heartbroken when her beloved twin brother dies. But Edward's still there, waiting for the moment when he can bring her to this new life...
1. Chapter 1

**Cry, Little Sister**

**A/N: **The idea for this came to me one night when I was watching _The Lost Boys _and heard the theme song "Cry Little Sister." So I thought I'd apply it to my other favorite vampires. By they way, I don't own the Cullens or the Lost Boys' theme songs.

**Chapter One**

I was so young and had already lost so much. The pain that I felt was so unbearable that I wished death would take me as easily as it had taken everyone else. I would have given everything to be taken by this deadly disease in this scourge of God.

My father had died so early that we had barely had time to grieve for him. I loved my father, but his death seemed so insignificant when Edward fell ill, when my whole world began to crash down around me. This was the cruelest thing God could have done to my young soul: take my other half, my best friend, the brother I loved more than anyone, and leave me to suffer his loss.

In this, my mother was spared. She never knew the loss of her young, beloved Edward and Emily. She would never know this burning pain of a survivor, would never sit and weep next to the deathly ill person she loves most, would never beg God to take her too.

I, however, was not so lucky. I watched helplessly as my family slipped away from me; while I prayed for death, it avoided me and instead took those who tried to hide or flee. So—foolish, naïve girl I was—I pretended to fear death when in fact I would have welcomed it.

My mother was already gone when the cold hand on my shoulder made me look up through my tears. Dr. Cullen, who had spent so much of his time at the sides of my mother and brother even when so many people needed him more, was standing at my side. Although I had once loved his beautiful face, I felt only pain as I looked up into his golden eyes because the mere thought of losing Edward had ripped love straight from my heart. Dr. Cullen's eyes were especially sad and gentle as he murmured so low that I would be the only one to hear, "Emily, I'm sorry, but he's gone."

No!" The loud, strangled sob echoed strangely through the sickroom; there was a soft murmur of surprise from across the room, and I tried to look for the source, but everything was spinning so fast. Everything except Dr. Cullen's worried, puzzled face mere inches from mine.

It was the last thing I knew before the curtain of blackness fell, shoving me from the edge of consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Somewhere around the edges, the pitch black curtain of unconsciousness was beginning to lighten. It was still so dark that my eyes were blind, but I was dimly aware of something cold brushing my forehead gently, and even through the dark, I could sense that someone was near.

But after a few seconds, I suddenly felt as if I were alone, although I couldn't be sure. The overwhelming pain and panic of being alone jerked back that thick black curtain, and I sobbed aloud to feel that pain.

Emily?" I was no longer alone, and the soft whisper of my name was easily recognizable. Dr. Cullen, so absurdly beautiful that it hardly seemed possible, was leaning over me, his golden eyes filled with worry and mild relief.

But the way he'd murmured my name made me think of a different face. I looked into Dr. Cullen's eyes which normally shone like gold but were suddenly like emeralds; his blonde hair darkened abruptly to bronze. His perfect features, already so youthful in their perfection, grew even younger until he was a beautiful boy just past the edge of seventeen.

It was the face my brother had died with. And it was the face I would never see again.

I broke into tears just as my heart shattered. It left behind a hole where it had once been, a hole that throbbed painfully around the edges, a hole that only Edward had filled.

Above me, Dr. Cullen's face contorted with pain to see the pain in mine. His beautiful, perfect face was etched with a sadness that no man before him had known, and his golden eyes were immeasurable pools of grief. His pain was so breathtakingly beautiful that it had conquered Edward's loss for the swiftest moment; I was suddenly so ashamed of myself for thinking of something as trivial as Dr. Cullen's absurd beauty so soon after losing Edward that I started crying even harder.

It was too hard to accept. My only brother was gone, and I was the only one left to grieve for him. The pain I felt was completely my own, none of it the grief my mother and father should have felt, because I had loved him so much more than they had.

Maybe that was why every time I thought my tears had finally dried, I always found more.

Maybe that was why the hole in my chest burned so badly.

Maybe that was why my world suddenly meant nothing to me.

* * *

**A/N: **The chapters will get longer, I promise. I just like to mix things up with long and short chapters.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

I vaguely remembered Dr. Cullen sitting at my side as I wept for my brother. Some small part of me felt so selfish because that while so many dying people needed him more than I did, he never left my side. But his silence, his icy hand in mine, his golden eyes keeping watch over me, were all small comforts to me. They wouldn't take the pain away, but they did numb it around the edges.

There did come a moment when Dr. Cullen's fingers began to slip from mine. Anguish washed over me again; I whimpered weakly to keep him from going. He immediately stopped, and I hear him call quietly, "Dr. Winstone, will you come here a moment?"

After an instant, there was a soft shuffling of footsteps, and a weary voice queried, "Yes, Carlisle?"

I'm going to take Miss Masen home," Dr. Cullen replied, his thumb tracing a path along my hand. I whimpered again, and Dr. Cullen's hand tightened ever so gently around mine.

Dr. Winstone-at the time, I imagined him as a graying, weathered old man who would look boringly plain next to Dr. Cullen-sighed thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "no girl should grieve for her brother in the middle of a sick wing. But her whole family is gone. Where will you take her?"

There was a small pause. Then Dr. Cullen answered, "She has an aunt who lives several blocks away; surely the woman won't turn away her orphaned niece at a time like this." He leaned close and murmured in my ear, "I'm still here, Emily."

His glacial hand was abruptly gone, but I did not whimper in protest this time. Because he had gathered me in his arms and easily lifted me from the bed where I had lain for so long before I had even realized that my hand was empty.

It was so cold in his arms, so cold against his chest that I began to shiver immediately. But it was fitting: my mother, my father, my brother were all cold as death, and now so was I. Somewhere in a small, detached corner of my mind, I thought it was also fitting that although my head rested directly above Dr. Cullen's heart, I could hear only the soft, steady murmur of his breathing. The hearts of everyone I'd loved were silent, and Dr. Cullen's was also.

The only thing indicating that we were actually moving was the sudden change in the air on my face. One moment, it was the warm, still air of the hospital pressing heavily on my closed eyelids; then it was abruptly dark and cool with just the lightest wind brushing my cheek. I cautiously opened my eyes and glanced up to see Dr. Cullen's face pale against the black velvet sky behind him.

"Wait a moment, Carlisle!" a voice suddenly called. Dr. Cullen seemed to have stopped, and footsteps approached us again. Dr. Winstone's voice came through the dark: "Why don't you go on home for the night, Carlisle?" I could hear Dr. Cullen take a breath to answer, but Dr. Winstone interrupted gently, "You've done enough for tonight, Carlisle. You comforted a grieving girl with no one left in this world; no one else would have been able to do that. Go home and rest. You've earned it."

Footsteps retreated away into the night. Dr. Cullen clasped me a little closer to his chest and laid his frozen cheek against the top of my head. Then I heard a soft sound that made me break into silent tears, a sound that would have broken my heart even if Edward's death hadn't already.

Dr. Carlisle Cullen, who everyone praised for his compassion and dedication, was sobbing brokenly like a grieving child.


	4. Chapter 4

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**Chapter Four**

Dr. Cullen left me with my aunt Sophia. She was my father's older sister, never married, and living the lonely life of an old maid. She and my father had once been as close as Edward and I were, but Aunt Sophia had never approved of my mother, and so they had grown apart. Years of seeing the life Father made for himself had made Aunt Sophia into a bitter, jealous woman who scorned her niece and nephew for bringing her brother a happiness of which she had deprived herself.

It was in this grim atmosphere that I grieved so badly for my brother. Perhaps I would have let go of Edward's face much sooner if Aunt Sophia had not spent every day telling me that I needed to forget him. But even though Aunt Sophia's widowed or married acquaintances claimed that I mourned my loss in a way only a woman could, I was still a child in so many ways. I clung stubbornly to my grief in part because Aunt Sophia was demanding I give it up.

I tried to go on like nothing had happened, but everything seemed so unimportant without Edward. In our house, the hour after dinner always found Edward seated at the piano in the parlor and me sitting next to him on the bench, combining our talents to make our parents smile. But after Edward's death, I refused to even enter Aunt Sophia's sitting room for fear of all my memories of Edward rushing back at the sight of her piano. I avoided reading because it had always been a habit of Edward's and mine to read aloud with each other before turning in for the night.

Aunt Sophia, once she realized I would not forget Edward, seemed cruelly amused at my brokenhearted reactions every time he was thought of or mentioned. She required that I attend the daily afternoon teas with her female neighbors in the sitting room, and after I had spent much of the time fighting back tears and trying to stop my eyes from wandering to the piano, she would look at me as if she had just noticed me and ask me politely if I would play the piano for them. "After all, you play beautifully," she would say with a smile that was angelic for her acquaintances yet demonic for me, "although not as beautifully as your brother." As an afterthought, she would always add, "It was a shame when he died, all that talent wasted."

I had never hated anyone before, but Aunt Sophia was the first. I hated everything about her. I hated the snide little sneer that came across her pinched face every time Edward's name slid past her lips. I hated that someone so spiteful, so malicious could have ever loved my father. But most of all, I hated that she had learned that the easiest way to hurt me was to remind me of the brother I loved.

Only days after Edward's death, it became clear that Aunt Sophia did not want me there anymore than I wanted to be there. I didn't want her company anyway; I wanted Edward's. But I would never have his company in this life again, so I went in search of the companionship of the one person who had comforted me when Edward was gone.

But when I went to the hospital to look for Dr. Cullen, Dr. Winstone told me that the young man had resigned several days previously.

"Resigned?"

I looked up helplessly at the doctor standing before me and remembered vaguely how I believed he looked. He was actually a man in perhaps his early forties with light brown hair and a warm, gentle face that would have been attractive if not compared to Dr. Cullen's. If things were still the way they were once, he could have been the man my mother wanted as my husband.

Dr. Winstone nodded, clearly worried that he had upset me. But I could see in his eyes that he was jealous of the pain Dr. Cullen's absence had caused. He might as well have muttered, "Of course it upsets you that Dr. Carlisle Cullen is gone, although a perfectly good man stands in front of you." I had the sense that he had greeted Dr. Cullen's resignation with masked enthusiasm and mock disappointment.

When I returned to Aunt Sophia's, I went back to my bed and curled up again. The throbbing hole that Edward's death had ripped in my chest began to burn worse now. Dr. Cullen, the iciness of his touch, the warmth of his presence, had numbed the pain. But he was gone from my life, just as my mother was, just as my father was.

Just as Edward was.

I didn't know if I would ever survive.


	5. Chapter 5

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**Chapter Five**

Surprisingly, I did.

But it was a painful existence. Grieving for Edward with every breath, every heartbeat, every cutting remark from Aunt Sophia. Weeping for most of the day and all of the night. Hiding from the face in the mirror because it was too much like Edward's.

No matter how painful, however, time went on.


	6. Chapter 6

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**Chapter Six**

It had been almost nine months since Edward's death and Dr. Cullen's resignation, and the hole in my chest still burned. It had been almost nine months, and Aunt Sophia decided that she hated living with me alone.

She introduced me to our new "renter," Silas Carrington. He looked like one of those men that all young women fear to see on the street; if Edward had seen him on the street while we were out walking, his arm would have tightened protectively around me. Silas leered suggestively at me; it made my stomach lurch in disgust.

Aunt Sophia claimed she had met him the week before and had spent days trying to convince him to move in with us. But I saw a gleam in her eyes that I had seen in Mother's when she watched Father quietly across the dinner table. In any other woman, like my mother, it was the gleam of love, although in Aunt Sophia's eyes, it was more like rampant lust.

If I had had any sense at all, I should have run away in the moment I first saw Silas Carrington. I should have fled that horrendous house where I wasn't wanted anyway; I should have run without looking back, even if I had no reason to look forward either. I should have gone searching for Dr. Cullen again because his arms of icy stone had given me a strange sense of security.

But instead I remained with Aunt Sophia and Mister Carrington (as Aunt Sophia demanded I call him). Besides, even as I thought wildly of running away to find Dr. Cullen, I knew I never would. Although people everywhere would remember him for that beauty only a Renaissance angel could have, his path would be practically impossible to follow. He had always moved in silence like a ghost; it was the only complaint anyone had ever voiced aloud about the man, even my mother: "He certainly is handsome, but there's just something frightening about the way he moves without making a sound."

By now, I thought then, Dr. Cullen could have easily left Chicago. A young, handsome, skilled doctor such as he could surely find a rewarding job somewhere else with ease. And with that perfect face and unyielding compassion, he would have no difficulty finding a woman as his wife.

The emotions rising in my throat were making me sick. Who was I to envy a woman who almost certainly didn't exist? Who was I to hate Dr. Cullen for leaving when I had never told him how much I needed him?

I went to bed that night in bitter tears, crying at this strange, new mix of emotions that had nothing to do with Edward.

And I had also remembered that the birthday Edward and I'd shared was only eleven days away. We would have been eighteen.

I would be, and he would never be.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Just a reminder. If you've heard of it, I don't own it.

**Chapter Seven**

I woke suddenly in the darkness the night before the eighteenth birthday I should have shared with Edward. A strangled scream slipped through my lips, but my throat was so dry that it came out as a broken sob. The nightmare I'd just been living had brought tears to my eyes as I slept, tears that still coursed down my cheeks. I buried my face in my hands and tried to forget that awful, horrifying nightmare, but it was still seared into my mind by a blinding fire.

I was sitting at the piano in Aunt Sophia's sitting room, not playing, just sitting and remembering better times. But then there was a soft sound behind me, a sound that made me look over my shoulder. Edward—exactly as I remembered him—stood in the door, watching me, his face lit with the crooked grin he had inherited from our father. I gasped his name and bolted across the room into his arms.

But I shrank back from him when I realized that he had grown cold, like Dr. Cullen. He could have been a marble statue left outside in the winter. Touching his frozen cheek cautiously, I murmured through my tears, "Edward, what happened to you?"

His cold fingers found my chin and lifted it until our eyes met. That was when I screamed, jerking myself out of the horror. I knew that I would carry that terrifying image with me until the end of my days because it had taken the face I'd loved most and twisted it into that of a monster.

Edward's eyes, which everyone claimed was the most beautiful shade of emerald they'd seen, had been a vivid, blood red.

The hole in my chest had never hurt as badly as it did now. I could not, would not believe that my beautiful, loving, gentle Edward could ever become a monster. He had been so sweet and so gentle in life that he would never harm another living thing, that no one would have reason to fear or hate him. Nothing in this world would have made me suppose he could ever be anything different.

But maybe something did, and that was the source of this pain. Its heat spread through me until I was gasping for breath in the dark, close, humid air of my room; I threw back the bedcovers, crossed the room, and forced open the window in search of some unlikely nighttime breeze.

I sat at the window for a long time that night, staring sadly at the streetlamp just down the street. In another section of the house, Aunt Sophia and Silas were very much awake, although they probably had no worries about waking me. But by keeping my eyes fixed on the streetlamp's yellow globe of light, I'd managed to block them from my mind as my thoughts drifted back to better times.

This was not the first sleepless night I had known in almost eighteen years, but it was the first sleepless night I had known alone. When we were ten, Edward and I had both fallen ill at the same time. We had gotten so ill that Father, who had been just as dedicated to his work at the law firm as he was to us, had refused to leave us. One night when we were at our worst, neither one of us had been able to sleep, so Mother and Father sat up with us through the night, distracting us with soft stories.

That night, as I lay curled in Father's lap, he looked out the window and commented to my mother that the dawn must be coming. I innocently asked him how he would know that without looking at his watch; he smiled down at me with that familiar crooked smile and murmured, "The night is always the darkest just before the dawn, sweetheart."

I sighed sadly, for the night I gazed upon now had grown the darkest it had been. The street on which Aunt Sophia lived was lit only by the streetlamp; its yellow light was not enough to reach the corner.

Maybe that was why I hadn't noticed the young man walking down the street until he stepped cautiously into the streetlamp's circle of light. He was dressed in modest dark gray trousers with a matching waistcoat and coat; the collar of his white shirt was worn loose without a tie. He carried with him a small teddy bear wearing a red ribbon tied around its neck. He might have been a young father, carrying a surprise home for his son or daughter.

But just as the thought went through my head, he looked up and met my eyes. We regarded each other for an instant, and then I slipped from the threshold of consciousness.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

When I woke, I was lying in bed, the covers tucked in around me carefully. I realized with a warm feeling that it was my birthday, and for a moment, I wondered when Edward would come bursting into the room to tell me happy birthday. But then I remembered he would never tell me happy birthday again. Tears leapt immediately to my eyes.

Then, in one sudden rush, everything of the previous night came flooding back to me. The young man by the street light, who had looked up at me in the very instant I had thought of him, had had the face of my brother, although it was somehow different. It was still Edward's face but more perfect, more beautiful.

I got out of bed and ran to the window, vainly hoping the young man would still be there. But there was no long, lanky figure standing near the street light. I wondered for an instant if he lived somewhere nearby, but I decided that if he had, I would have seen him before and would have remembered seeing him.

As I turned sadly from the window to hide my tears from the bright June morning, I saw them sitting on the nightstand. To see them there was too much for me to comprehend, for I had left them behind the night Mother and Edward died.

Sitting on my nightstand were the snow white stuffed bear that Father had given to me when I was eleven and the small framed photograph of the four of us. Father had brought the bear, with its now tattered red ribbon, home for me from the toy store he'd visited while on his trip to New York City. I had loved that bear and slept with it every night, letting it sit faithfully on my bed during the day; I'd named it Manhattan, after the New York borough where Father had bought it.

The photograph had been taken in 1916, just days before Edward's and my fifteenth birthday. Father and Edward stood behind Mother and me, their lanky heights and crooked grins the only things marking them as father and son.

But I had left Manhattan and the photograph in our house when Mother and Edward had fallen ill. I could still remember glancing back over my shoulder as I left my room to see Manhattan sitting against the pillows.

I doubted at once that Aunt Sophia would have gone to collect them for me. She hadn't mentioned my birthday and wouldn't have given me anything to acknowledge it anyway; besides, even if she had planned on giving me something, how would have she known how much Manhattan and the photograph had meant to me?

Then I saw the small piece of paper tucked between the bear and the frame. I picked it up slowly and studied it for a few seconds before unfolding it. There were only two words written there in an elegant, flowing hand:

_Happy Birthday._

The hole in my chest throbbed painfully. My mind told me firmly that Edward was dead, but my heart, which had begun beating slowly in a small corner of my chest, murmured softly that he was still alive somewhere, that Dr. Cullen had lied to me.

I spent most of the day trying to ignore the burning ache in my chest. All day, the battle between my heart and my mind raged violently until I no longer knew which side would triumph over the other.

My mind would give my grief finality and closure regarding Edward's death, but my heart could give me back the brother I still loved.

I certainly knew which side I hoped would come out victorious.

That night, I cried myself to sleep, clutching Manhattan to my chest like a frightened child. I had never needed that bear more than ever before because he was something familiar, from the life and family I had known before. From the life and family I would never have again.

* * *

**A/N: **Okay, I know I promised longer chapters, but they seem much longer when I type them up in Word. But I do know there will be a couple of lengthier chapters coming up.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

For the next five months, I helplessly stood as witness to the battle raging inside me. It was an endless tug-of-war between my heart and my mind, and neither seemed strong enough to win. The only day neither side seemed to fight was the twelfth of September, the very day Edward had died.

The young man with Edward's face never appeared again on the street, and when I asked Aunt Sophia if she knew of any bronze-haired young men living in the neighborhood, she merely looked at me as if I had finally gone insane.

So, in what I assumed would be a vain attempt to console my grief once and for all, I decided to return home. I was sure I would find the house Edward and I had grown up in sold to some other family, whole and complete except perhaps for the young husband or son drafted into the Great War.

I waited for a windy autumn night when Aunt Sophia would be oblivious to any other sounds in the house, for if she caught me sneaking out, she would have me sent to the asylum at once. So I let the house fall quiet around me, dressed appropriately for the cold night and wind, and snuck out through the front door.

The darkened streets frightened me more that night than they ever had, perhaps because I had never gone walking down them alone but always with Father or Edward at my side. They had both been so protective sometimes that Mother and I would sigh in irritation whenever one or both of them insisted on going with us.

It was a longer walk than I remembered, through sections of sidewalk so pitch black that I couldn't see anything in front of me. I almost ran past the gates of Lincoln Park, too terrified to walk when my mind was filled with the images and stories of the horrors that had happened in the park at night.

But finally I rounded a corner and saw halfway down Hardwicke Avenue the house I knew so well. While the houses of my neighbors still had a few lights burning in the windows, the windows of my house were depressingly dark. Tears leapt to my eyes as I walked slowly down the street.

The flowers my mother had grown in a box beneath the parlor window had died long ago; their brown skeletons were crumbling to dust in the wind. The ebony paint on the front door was peeling, and the brass doorknocker gleamed dimly in the light from the streetlamp three houses down.

I went up the front steps slowly and slowly, cautiously reached to touch the doorknob. Taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart, I turned the door handle with no hopes of it obeying. Instead, it moved easily under my touch, as easily as it would have moved under Father's strong hand.

The door creaked open slowly, letting a few beams of light dance through our front hall. I let the tears spill down my cheeks as I stepped into the house, seeing so many ghosts of the past.

Our mother called to Edward and me from the kitchen, and we came bounding down the stairs the way only young children would. Our father entered the front hall and called out that he was home, putting down his briefcase and hanging up his coat; Edward and I rushed out of the parlor to greet him, Mother trailing slowly behind us with a small smile lighting up her emerald eyes. Edward and I sat side by side on the piano bench, his long fingers dancing over the black and white keys, my voice echoing throughout the house.

I thought sadly to myself that this had been a horrible idea, that I had only hurt myself more. But despite the agonizing grief in my chest, I felt a little better. Here, at least, I could mourn for my family in a way that I couldn't at Aunt Sophia's, in her presence and Silas's. Here, I wouldn't have to hold back the overwhelming tears; here, I could wail out in pain without any sharp reprimand.

When only a few tears were all that was left, I closed the front door softly behind me. These rooms were drawing me forward, whispering that they had once sheltered everyone I loved. I moved silently up the staircase and down the hall, my hand leaving trails in the dust as I touched the handles on every door.

My room was just as I'd left it, but Manhattan and my family portrait were nowhere to be found. Edward's room, immediately next to mine, had not changed either; the bed where he had spent some of his last days was still unmade, and nothing here had been taken, unless it was something I had never known about.

Here, surrounded by the things my brother had kept, it was hardest to pretend I no longer grieved for him. I curled into a ball in the middle of his bed and wept again, the sobs tearing through me and making the burning hole in my chest hurt worse.

I rose from Edward's bed only when I thought I heard a soft sound downstairs. But when I searched for the source, I found nothing, just more ghosts. I took my fruitless search as a sign that I should leave, and I was almost to the front door when I remembered that I hadn't looked in the parlor, where Edward's piano sat.

The tears erupted again as I walked into the room. Along the wall opposite the window looking onto the street, there was an empty spot between a winged chair and my mother's writing desk.

Edward's piano was gone. Just like he was.

I ran from the house as quickly as I could, stumbling several times through my tears. I wanted to keep running, never looking back, forgetting everything I knew with every step. I wanted to find Dr. Cullen, beg him to take me with him wherever he went, beg him to help me forget.

But, several blocks from the house, I stumbled and fell to the sidewalk. I had no strength left to get up and continue to Aunt Sophia's house, and even if I had had any strength, I would not have gotten up anyway.

Then suddenly I heard voices. I looked up in surprise to see a large group of men coming down the street towards me. "Get up," a soft voice murmured in the back of my mind. "Emily, get up now!" I obeyed instantly because I recognized it at once as Edward's. "You have to run," Edward's voice purred in my head, but I couldn't move through the paralyzing fear.

Suddenly the man in front looked up. He reeled slightly to see me there, but then he crowed, "Well, well, boys, look what we have here!" His companions gave a unanimous murmur of greed as they spotted me; their leader signaled them to stay there, then drew near enough to touch me.

"Emily, please for the love of God, run!" Edward's voice pleaded. As much as I wanted to obey that wonderful, beautiful voice I hadn't heard in almost a year, I couldn't. Nothing―not even the man's rank breath mingling with the nauseating smell of alcohol, not even the lust-filled look in his eyes that made the vomit rise in my throat, not even the calloused fingers that brushed across my cheek and sent shivers rippling down my spine―could make me move from where I was rooted to the sidewalk.

As he reached out to grab me, though, my body finally responded, and I bolted. He cursed and started after me, his companions joining the chase behind him. I could hear them panting and breathing behind me; terror washed through me at the thought that I would never be able to outrun them.

Edward's voice, however, was harsh as it scolded, "Don't think like that, Emily. Just keep running." I was too terrified to question it, so I obeyed, gasping for breath and begging for help. But the voice didn't come back to me.

I was running blindly down street after street, turning corner after corner, hoping to lose these men behind me. But I was only losing myself in the heart of Chicago, and I was tiring as my pursuers grew stronger. I looked back once over my shoulder, just to check how close they were, but there was a low snarl in my mind that made me whip my head forward again.

My heart was pounding, my breath wouldn't come to me, and my limbs were burning when I rounded another corner and slid to a stop.

The hunt was over, and just like the deer cowering before the hunter, I had lost.

I was in a dead-ended alley, and my only escape was past the eight men behind me. The leader had skidded to a stop beside me and seized my arm roughly; as I begged him to let me go, he dragged me farther into the alley, away from the revealing light of the streetlamps.

He threw me down to the ground at the end of the alley and called back to his companions to join us. It was so dark that I could barely see the man standing above me, much less the seven men standing in a loose semicircle around us. I broke into tears, knowing that once they had finished with me, they'd slit my throat and leave my body here for someone to discover in the bright light of day.

I closed my eyes and sobbed softly through the dark, hoping he'd hear it wherever he was, "Edward, I'm sorry. I love you." For a moment, I was grateful that the men's loud laughing made it impossible for any of them to hear.

I had once welcomed death, had even begged for it, but now, when it lurked at the edge of the alley and drew nearer with my every breath, I feared it. But I was comforted to see that behind it, an angel waited for me.

An angel with my brother's face.


	10. Chapter 10

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**Chapter** **Ten**

"Let her go."

The voice, although it was soft, rang through the alley with such severe finality that no man could ignore. The men wheeled toward the source, and even I weakly turned my head to see past my captors the angel who had been waiting for me.

It was Edward but not as I knew him. It was the Edward from my nightmare, although it was impossible to know the color of his eyes. His skin was so pale that he was faintly glowing against the darkness of the alley; he looked so terribly beautiful in the dark, even though his face was twisted with indescribable fury and hate.

The man who stood nearest me scoffed in amusement, "And what if we don't, son? What will you do? Go running off to pout to your daddy?" The laughter faded from his voice as he ordered, "Hugh, Nigel, take care of the kid; I'll take care of the girl."

"No!" The word had ripped its way out of my chest, but it was meant to stop them from hurting Edward, not me. I was abruptly slapped across the face for it, a stinging blow that made my eyes water and my cheek burn.

The two shadows that were Hugh and Nigel had drawn near enough to Edward that they were standing on either side of him. One of them muttered, "Come on, kid, just get out of here. We don't wanna kill you."

Edward just smiled angelically and replied softly, "I'm not going anywhere, gentlemen, not without my sister. Now, let her go, and I won't have to kill you." There was the authority in his voice again, an authority he didn't have when he was younger. This authority made him sound as if he thought he were invincible.

There was a low grumble, and I could sense the shadows on either side of Edward moving. But there were two flashes of white, and the shadows suddenly shrank. I heard a soft crunching and then low thuds as the shadows fell back to the ground. I recoiled from the bodies whose heads were twisted back unnaturally.

"Any other takers?" Edward asked quietly.

With a low murmur of anger, the remaining men surged forward. I screamed Edward's name, fearing they would kill him within seconds. I strained to hear Edward's last breath through the dark, but all I could hear was a low snarling that barely masked the snapping and crunching beneath it.

After a few moments, silence fell on the alley. I sat up shakily to see Edward standing several feet away, surrounded by the motionless forms of the men who'd chased me, holding his head in his hands. My heart throbbed weakly to see him in front of me, and I murmured quietly, "Edward?"

At the sound of his name, Edward looked up at me and moved to my side so quickly that I never even saw him coming. He wrapped one cold arm around me and asked softly, "Did they hurt you?"

I shook my head and cautiously touched his cheek, just as I had in the nightmare that seemed so long ago. It was frozen and sent a cold chill rippling down my arm, but I didn't pull back from him this time. His eyes closed at my touch, and he leaned heavily against my hand.

He was beautiful, far too beautiful to be my brother. If I had been any other girl on the street, I would have loved him instantly for his angel's face, but I loved him for everything behind the face. I loved him because he was my brother, because he was truly my other half, because everything was nothing without him.

But I thought suddenly of the nightmare where his eyes were blood red instead of emerald green, the terror that had flooded through me when I saw the disturbing change. Before tonight, that had been the most terrifying thing I had ever seen in my young life. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know the truth; I sobbed and buried my face against the hard marble of his shoulder.

Almost as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, Edward whispered, "Emily, look at me." I shook my head against his shoulder because I didn't want to look up into a face I had loved, only to find a monster's in its place. Edward pushed me away gently and lifted my chin until our eyes met.

For a flashing instant, I thought I was going to scream. I had been expecting to see the vivid scarlet pupils I had seen in my dream, but his eyes were a different color, certainly not the bright emerald I remembered but another familiar color that made my heart pound in surprise.

Edward's eyes were soft gold, just like Dr. Cullen's had been.

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And his face was the last thing I saw before the dark swept through my mind.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

I was alone when I awoke the next morning. But I was alone and tucked into my warm bed with Manhattan at my side; there was no sign of the brother who had just saved my life in that dark alley.

The previous night seemed so impossible that it might not have happened at all. The only evidence was the aching soreness in my every limb and the letter propped up against the photograph on the nightstand. The letter had my name written across the front in the same elegant hand as my birthday note.

_Dear Emily—_

_I'm afraid that perhaps I've made this life harder on you than it needs to be or than I meant to. I had hoped that I would be able to just walk away from the life I knew, but I cling to it as desperately as you do. There are too many memories, yours and mine combined, remaining with me; I spend too many of my days reliving these memories, which are almost as painful as watching you drown in your grief._

_Please, my dearest sister, forget me. Forget me, forget your grief, and move on with your life. I don't deserve the tears you shed for me, and you don't deserve the heartache I've caused you. So, although you will probably fight me on this, please just go on like I had never left. Find a respectable husband, perhaps a young soldier returning home from the Great War and hoping to forget the horrors he's seen in France; raise a family to replace the one you've lost, name your son Edward, your daughter Elizabeth._

_Soon, your memories of me will fade. That much I can promise you. But my memories of you will never fade. I could never forget the warm, loving girl I was and am still proud to call my sister. All I ask of her is to forget me and never wander alone at night again. An angel won't always be there to protect her._

_Your loving brother,_

_Edward_

I broke into tears again. I would never forget Edward, even if his angel's face had been there in front of me to beg. He had been my best friend yet my older (although only by an hour), protective brother; no girl in Chicago could have asked for a better brother, and no girl could have forgotten that brother, even if he'd asked it of her.

That afternoon, when my tears had dried, I went back to the house my father had bought just two years before Edward and I were born. It had snowed sometime during the night, and daily life continued, so these city streets held no fear for me now.

Hardwicke Avenue in the daylight was just as I'd remembered it, even after over a year later. The neighborhood children were another year older, just as I was, but they still played raucously in the street, the air echoing with their peals of laughter as they threw snowballs back and forth. I even saw the young, ebony-haired girl that my mother had watched over until the girl's widowed father came home every evening.

Sarah recognized me instantly and cried aloud, "Emily!" She skipped through the snow to me, bringing several kids with her, and threw her arms excitedly around me. Looking up at me with her wide, brown eyes, she said, "I never thought you'd come back. Father said you would never come back, not after what happened to everyone. But I waited and waited because I knew you'd come back someday." I could manage only a weak smile that didn't reach my heart.

"Emily?" I looked up at the familiar voice. Mrs. Benson, who lived four houses down the street and who had been Edward's and my piano instructor, had also drawn near several steps behind the neighborhood children. I gently pried Sarah from my skirts and rushed into Mrs. Benson's arms. She clasped me close for a moment, then pushed me away gently, and said, "I'm so glad to see you here again. Nothing's been the same without you." Her kind, smiling eyes were looking into mine as she asked me quietly, ""How are you holding up, dear?"

What could I tell her? The unbelievable truth? That my brother, who had been dead a year, had saved my life last night and singlehandedly killed eight grown men, each one at least twice his age? That my brother was supposed to be just as dead as my parents? That I had come here, hoping to find any evidence of the brother I may or may not have lost to the Spanish influenza?

So I lied to her. "Oh, it's been hard," I replied, casting my eyes to the ground. "I miss them every day. But I'm getting better; I don't spend every night crying."

Sadness flitted across Mrs. Benson's lined brow. She murmured, "I'm sorry, Emily. I wouldn't expect you to forget your parents and brother so easily. But if you don't mind me asking, what's helped you the most?"

Oh, what was one more lie? I let a small smile flicker across my lips as Dr. Cullen's face slipped into my mind. "Truthfully," (I flinched internally at using the word in such a lie,) "Carlisle helps a lot. He's a great comfort to me."

"Carlisle?" Mrs. Benson queried, her brow furrowing in slight confusion. "As in Dr. Cullen from the hospital?"

I nodded. "Actually," I lied again, "we've been engaged for several weeks now." Surely I would be damned for all these lies.

Her smile was more dazzling than the snow glistening on the sidewalk. "Such a handsome, nice young man," she murmured fondly, "and a doctor no less. He'll take good care of you." Her smile slipped a little. "But I haven't heard anything of the engagement from anyone."

The slight look of suspicion in her eyes made me know exactly what she was thinking. I saw how her eyes casually flitted to my stomach, checking if I might have been hiding something. In our society, there was only one reason to keep an engagement secret, and it would have caused quite a scandal.

"Oh, Carlisle's been so busy down at the hospital that I hardly see him," I explained lightly. "And we're moving to Philadelphia just after New Year's to be with his family. We've decided to put off the wedding until we've had time to settle in." I hoped that would quiet the gossiping whispers, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I was never coming back, and neither was Dr. Cullen.

Sighing, I said, "Well, I should be going. I promised Carlisle I would meet him at the hospital when his shift was over. I was so glad to see you again, Mrs. Benson." I embraced her and turned to leave, pausing to saying goodbye to Sarah and the other children who knew me.

Mrs. Benson's voice still had a trace of suspicion as she called after me, "Well, take care, dear! Congratulations on catching the most attractive man in Chicago!"

I waved vaguely over my shoulder and returned to Aunt Sophia's house. There, I sat at my window and wondered what I had come to. I had just given one of my mother's closest friends a ridiculous web of lies that I was going to move to Philadelphia with and then marry Dr. Carlisle Cullen, a story that was sure to start rumors. Surely, I thought, I was losing my sanity with each passing day; I should have checked myself into the asylum.

And I probably would have if I had survived the next two weeks.


	12. Chapter 12

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**Chapter Twelve**

If I hadn't been wishing so badly that Edward would come back to me, I might have noticed how kind Aunt Sophia was beginning to act toward me. I might have noticed the quiet, whispered exchanges she and Silas had while they thought I slept. I might have noticed that the lustful gleam in Silas's eyes was stronger with each passing day.

If I had noticed any of this, I might have had the sickening feeling of suspicion rise in my stomach. I might have run away, just as I should have a long time ago. I might have heard Edward's voice in my head again, murmuring to me that I was in danger.

But I ignored everything that had nothing to do with Edward. So I didn't notice that on the seventh of December, the house was as silent as the grave once Aunt Sophia, Silas, and I had retired for the night. I was sitting at the window again, hoping to see Edward's ghostly face appear beneath the streetlight once more, when I heard the door creak open behind me.

I turned to see Silas stepping into the room with a leering grin. There was a snarl in my mind, and then Edward's voice demanded, "Emily, tell him to leave."

With all the courage Edward's voice gave me, I said loudly, "Get out of my room!"

Silas just laughed. I got up quickly and tried to put the chair between us, but he stepped forward and knocked it aside easily. He snickered again, then queried, "Did you really think I would listen? Why would I listen to a girl who's been nothing but a thorn in her aunt's side since she moved in?"

"I should have left this place from the minute I saw you!" I cried. "I knew you were no good!" I was trying to edge my way towards the door, but he wasn't allowing it.

He laughed again. He advanced on me, and I shrank back from him in horror until my back found the wall and I could go no further. I closed my eyes as his hand curled around my throat, and he snarled in my ear, "But I'm going to prove to you just how good I am, Emily."

Edward snarled in my mind for a second time and shouted, his voice ringing through my every cell, "Fight! You have to fight him off!"

The scream that echoed through the room was mine. The fingernails clawing at flesh were mine; the panic, fear, and adrenaline were mine; the tears of defeat were mine. But my virtue was Silas's now, and the snarling voice yelling and then sobbing in the back of my mind was Edward's.

When Silas was done, he sneered down at me. "I guess there's just one thing left then," he said, as if to himself. He disappeared from my line of vision, which was blurring around the edges anyway. There was a loud crash of breaking glass, and then he returned and crouched beside me. His rough fingers found my hand, pried apart my clenched fingers, and curled them tightly around a large shard of glass.

I remember crying out as he forced the glass shard's sharp edge to find the soft skin of my wrists. The blackness closed over my vision, and I drifted between this world and the next.

Everything was fading from this world. The only thing that seemed to stay was Edward's beautiful face. I whimpered to see it, especially now, as my strength and willpower faded.

Then suddenly there was a soft cry of anguish that wasn't mine. "Emily!" an angel's voice cried somewhere above me. I managed to open my eyes just far enough to see my brother's face hovering a few inches away, but as close as he seemed, he was still too far away and I was far too weak.

Edward began to sob brokenly, and I waited for his tears to touch my cheek. But all I felt was a cold hand on my cheek. "How could I have let this happen?" he asked quietly to himself in his angel's voice. I had no strength left to tell him anything, to reassure him it wasn't his fault.

I was slipping from this world with every beat of my broken heart, and I would surely die here under this sobbing angel.

But I was swept from my pain into a ring of cold that numbed everything. Edward choked through his sobs, "Emily, please! No, no, oh God, please no!" It was then that my eyes opened again, and I saw the scarlet blood dripping from my fingertips. But I drifted again, wondering if death was this way for everyone.

There was another crashing sound, and glass rained down on my face. I was suddenly falling, although I had no strength to scream. Edward's broken sobbing continued somewhere above me, and light and dark were racing too quickly over my eyes. I closed my eyes and turned away from those nauseating contrasts, hoping everything would end soon.

My heart was slowing in my chest, and my strength was so far gone that I could no longer open my eyes or move of my own free will.

Then the air was warm and the light was dim on my closed eyes. There were voices that seemed very far away; I recognized Edward crying, his voice breaking with more sobs, "Carlisle, please! She's dying!" There was a much softer, calmer voice saying, "Here, give her to me."

These arms were familiar to me; these arms had carried me before. I thought calmly that I would rather die nowhere else than these arms.

But something sharper than the shard of glass pressed lightly against my throat, then sank in. The fire took me, and all feelings of calm fled with the flames.


	13. Chapter 13

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**Chapter Thirteen**

She was too quiet. She'd only screamed twice, once soon after Carlisle bit her, and then again two days later. I would have been proud of her if every cry of agony, every plea for death that echoed through her mind hadn't echoed through mine too.

Carlisle sat with her, holding her hand, apologizing with almost every breath, promising her it would all be over soon. But still she begged silently for death, even as he tried to comfort her. And he worried for her until her pain echoed through all of us.

He had wondered what had happened, but I'd refused to tell him. I knew if I told him, he would guess my plan immediately and try to talk me out of it. But the man who had done this and the woman who had allowed this deserved the darkest circle of hell and deserved to know exactly why.

My parents had always claimed I had the tendency to be overly dramatic, and perhaps that was why I dressed all in black that night, exactly three nights after Carlisle changed my sister. I wanted my victims to see exactly what I was, and I wanted to be the last thing they feared just as they had been the last thing my sister's feared.

I strode past Carlisle, who was sitting with Emily in the rear parlor, towards the front door. He took in my grim expression in an instant and questioned, his voice unusually hard, "Edward, where are you going?" He didn't need my answer. He knew immediately and thought instantly, _you kill those humans, and we'll have to leave Chicago within the week._

But I was too hardheaded to give the idea much thought. "We'd have to leave soon anyway, Carlisle," I reminded him icily. "And I'm not letting them getting away with this. Death is the least they deserve after what they did to my sister."

_I didn't bring you to this life so you can destroy your human enemies, Edward,_ Carlisle thought stonily as I turned to walk out the door. I wheeled quickly to face him; he was now on his feet, still holding Emily's hand in his own.

"No, you didn't," I commented lightly, "but it certainly is an advantage." I threw on the long black coat Carlisle wore to the hospital only as a prop and assured him, "If it makes you feel better, I won't spill a drop." He glared balefully at me; I chuckled and slipped out the door.

Aunt Sophia's house was quiet and dark when I reached it. The window to Emily's room was still broken from when I had burst through it in my hurry to get Emily to Carlisle. I smiled tensely to myself. It would make breaking in all the easier. I paused on the street below to check for any curious eyes or minds, and finding none, one sinuous leap found me crouched on the empty windowsill.

I moved silently into the room, away from the window in case anyone might see me there. In separate sections of the house, Aunt Sophia and her boarder Silas were both gloating over what they'd done. _That silent, moping girl's finally gone, _Aunt Sophia was thinking gleefully, _and I'll have Silas to myself like I should have all along!_

This Silas, however, was not thinking along the same lines. _…shame Sophia wanted to fake the girl's suicide. If I'd ravaged her a few more times, she might have done it herself._

My fingers clenched; they were already imagining snapping every bone in his neck, closing in a death grip around his throat.

But even as much as I agreed, I wanted to do this dramatically. I was the hunter, and they were my prey. I wanted to hear the fear in their minds and to tell them exactly why they would die.

So I drifted silently across the room, barely pausing to break the lock on the door, which Silas must have locked behind him as he left my sister for dead. These dark rooms and halls were unfamiliar to me because I had only been here once, but I moved like a ghost through the shadows across the walls and worn carpet.

I, despite that single visit so long ago, did remember that Aunt Sophia's piano sat in the sitting room. And I did remember how my father had explained quietly that Aunt Sophia had never learned to play, so it sat silently and alone in her house.

After taking a few minutes to tune the old piano, I laid Carlisle's black coat on the piano bench, sat down beside it, and began to play. I had made it through several measures before Aunt Sophia and Silas's thoughts reached me.

_That old thing hasn't played in years…I didn't even know Silas could play…_

_What the hell is with the piano concert in the middle of the night? Sophia said she didn't even know how to play._

Above the music, I heard their doors creak open and their footsteps meet in the hall. They whispered together for a moment, theirs words as confused as their thoughts, and then their footsteps shuffled softly across the carpet.

The swinging door to the sitting room opened slowly, cautiously behind me. Sophia and Silas were hoping to surprise a musically-talented burglar, but all they found was an unusually pale young man dressed entirely in black so all they saw of him in the dark was his face and hands.

Aunt Sophia's eyes landed on my face, and she recognized me in a moment. _Edward? _She was too shocked to utter the words aloud. _But…but…you're dead._

Smiling to myself and playing a bit more softly, I said politely, "Good evening, Aunt Sophia. I do not believe I've been introduced to your new renter." I made it sound like I'd surprised her with an afternoon visit.

They were speechless and confused. It made me smile. I kept playing for several minutes, basking contentedly in their bewilderment.

But as the song's final note died, I rose quickly from the piano bench. Aunt Sophia, who had stepped forward in disbelief, shrank back several steps until she bumped into Silas. The fear whispering softly on the edges of their minds made me smile again, but then another of Emily's silent screams swept through my mind, immediately wiping the smile from my face. Her thoughts forming coherently before her words, Aunt Sophia asked, "What are you doing here?"

I started to pace a path circling them and pretended to ponder my answer. "Unfortunately," I replied after a moment, "I did not come for a social visit, Aunt Sophia. I actually came to talk to you about something gravely important."

"What might that be, Edward?" Aunt Sophia queried. Her voice cracked with fear on the last syllable of my name, and my father's face flashed quickly through her mind at our shared name. _Nothing like his father, _she thought bitterly despite her fear.

She was right in so many ways. I had never looked like my father in my first life, and I would never look like him in this life. He had fallen in the face of death, and I would always look death in the face and laugh. He had never physically harmed another human being, and I was, even in the beginning of this new life, already a murderer.

The memory of his face burned, but my sister, her thoughts and silent screams still echoing painfully through my head, burned with a destroying fire. And the memory of her dying made me burn with hate.

So I explained, still tracing the circle around Sophia and Silas, "You see, my dear Aunt Sophia, if I remember correctly, a handsome young man rang your doorbell in the early hours on the thirteenth of September over a year ago. Perhaps you remember him because he introduced himself as Dr. Carlisle Cullen?" I paused slightly and smiled as Carlisle's unforgettable face rose in her mind. "Ah yes, who could ever forget that young man with the perfect, beautiful face of an angel?

"Well, Aunt Sophia," I continued softly, "he brought you a girl who had lost her entire family. He brought you a girl who needed you to take her in like family." I had seen that night so many times in Carlisle's mind that I knew it as if I had been there myself; it now ran so painfully behind my eyes that I almost didn't hear my sister's name flit quickly through Aunt Sophia's mind.

I hated what they had done to my sister, not only taking her life but also making her every day even more miserable. And because I hated what they'd done, I hated them. So my voice was hard as I stated, "He brought you my sister, your brother's daughter. He brought her to you because he thought you would take care of her as she needed to be taken care of. But instead what did you do? You let a no-good lowlife rape and kill her."

Aunt Sophia flinched and Silas blanched at the low snarl that had started rumbling in my chest. I stopped pacing and moved to stand at Aunt Sophia's side so I could take her arm in my hand. "My sister burns because you left her for dead," I snarled. My fingers tightened and felt the bone snap beneath them. Aunt Sophia cried out in pain, but I ignored her. "I brought her to a new life because I love her, and I will take you from this life because I love her."

A soft scream swept through the room, even though there was no time for Aunt Sophia to work up another one. Silas tried to run, but I caught him easily and brought him down quickly.

The house had fallen silent again. I picked up Carlisle's coat from the bench and put it on again; now the task at hand was to hide my trail. I ransacked the sitting room, as if I was an unsatisfied burglar. When I came across the small locked box that I guessed held most of Aunt Sophia's money, I smashed the box on the floor and took the contents without bothering to see what they were.

By the time I left, the window in the back door was smashed, the door itself left open so it creaked in the wind. The jewelry box in Aunt Sophia's room was empty, every room in the house ransacked, and the bodies in the sitting room searched. The pockets of Carlisle's black coat were heavy with stolen jewelry and money, which I discarded quickly. The jewelry I sold to a greasy young man at the counter of a pawn shop who wondered silently if my mother knew I'd raided her jewelry box; all of the money went to a bewildered homeless man digging through a dumpster in a dark alley.

But inside the inner breast pocket, just above the place where my heart should have been beating, were a stuffed bear and framed photograph. They wouldn't be discarded so quickly, at least not by me.

I returned to Carlisle and Emily, to the family I'd kill for.

* * *

**A/N: **I hope I didn't confuse anyone with the change in POV. I just thought the scene would be better from Edward's POV.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

I was drowning in fire, and I was begging for death, but I had anchors to this pain. The hand in mine held me here, and a voice that sounded so very far away was murmuring my name. But I didn't want to answer because to do so would keep me anchored to the fire. I wanted to drift, to die.

And there was another pain I knew, but this pain was different from mine, for it was not mine altogether. It was deep in a rear corner of my mind, faraway yet still there.

_I should have left her there. I shouldn't have allowed Carlisle to bring her to this life. She doesn't deserve this. _It was Edward I heard, but I knew immediately he wasn't speaking out loud. What was echoing through my head was Edward's voice, although it was pitched a half-step lower than usual. It also seemed very distant, as if he were talking from a long distance away.

Then my heart began to beat much faster than it ever had; it was as if it were trying to escape through my ribs. It moved too fast to count the beats, each passing swiftly into the next. This swift new heartbeat of mine only made the fire worse, as if it had added the fuel. The flames made my spine arch painfully until it felt like snapping in two.

"Carlisle," Edward murmured softly, my sprinting heart echoing loudly through his head, "is it over yet?"

Somewhere above me, another familiar voice answered just as quietly, "I think so, but I cannot be sure." There was a soft pause, and Carlisle added, a small smile slipping into his words, "You would know better than I would."

Edward was quiet for a moment. Too quiet, I thought.

Did he hate me in this life as he loved me in our old lives? Was there no room in this new life for the sister he loved? Or did he blame himself for everything that had happened when he was gone?

A wave of anguish washed over me; I hadn't even noticed that the pain was beginning to fade as rapidly as it had come.

My heart thudded loudly and painfully twice, then gave one last throb, and stopped. I slumped back and felt finally thankful that it was over. But there was a strange new feeling that something was missing. And then I realized there was no air in my lungs, and this was unfamiliar; I reflexively took a deep breath, only to understand that my body was unsure how to respond. It didn't need the air in my lungs.

Suddenly a hand was brushing the hair from my forehead, and Edward whispered in a low voice, "Emily, I know you can hear us. Just open your eyes."

I obeyed like a small child. The room was pitch black, but I could see every detail of Edward's face above me, including the bright teeth flashing from the crooked grin I knew so well. It was even more beautiful than I had known it, finally seeing it through my new eyes. There were unfamiliar voices whispering faintly in my ears; even though they sounded very far away, I could understand every word said, every distinction between voices.

But there were two things I noticed more than anything as my eyes opened for the first time in this, my new life. The first was the dry ache in my throat, the painful yearning in my stomach; it felt like I had been hungry for so long. I had never known the pain of hunger such as this, had had the privileged life where three solid meals a day were simply taken for granted, so this feeling of intense hunger was strange and unknown to me.

As were the voices running through my head. The only ones I recognized were Edward and Carlisle's, and they were so much louder than the others, perhaps because they were nearest or perhaps because I knew them better. But the rush of voices was flooding through my mind, blending together so swiftly that I couldn't understand anything.

The strange combination of hunger and confusion made me scream in frustration. The sound echoed hollowly through my head, silencing the voices for only a moment. This was all so upsetting and unfamiliar that I broke down sobbing. Several inches away, Edward's face was twisted with an indescribable expression, one torn with intense parts of disbelief and confusion. Just over his shoulder, I could see Carlisle's face wrought with a similar expression, his marble brow furrowed with apprehension.

_Edward, what's going on?_ _What's wrong? _It was Carlisle's voice, yet somehow it wasn't but still familiar enough to recognize as Carlisle's. As soon as I heard it, however, the stream quieted to a low rush in the background, a sound that was so easily ignored.

For a moment, all Edward could do was to stare at me in disbelief and shake his head. _It's not possible…of course, it's possible…she's already proved that. _The confusion in his eyes of liquid gold was not helping me to feel any better, and neither was his silent voice echoing through my head.

"Edward, please, just stop!" I wailed. I hid my face in my hands and began sobbing again, waiting for the tears that weren't coming like I'd thought they would.

_Emily, wait. _It was patient, soothing but edged with a trace of pain and regret. Edward's long hands looped around my wrists and tried to pull my hands away from my face, but I wasn't going to let him look me in the face. _Emily, please, just look at me,_ he continued calmly. _I know nothing makes sense, and I can explain everything, just look at me. _I shook my head in protest. Edward sighed softly, wearily. _You can trust me in this life just as you trusted me in our last life, sister. Even after everything, I'm still the brother you love._

I slowly lowered my hands and looked cautiously up into Edward's face. He smiled the familiar crooked grin he'd inherited from our father. _We look just as identical in this life as we did in the last one, _he thought, clearly amused.

And, as I saw my face reflected in his thoughts, I saw he was right. We both still had the unusual bronze hair our mother had given us, and our faces were still so clearly our mother's, even behind the smooth perfection. Edward's face still hinted at the underlying presence of our father's strong features, but mine held the delicacy that our mother's had.

But the biggest and most startling difference was the colors of our eyes. They'd once been the same vibrant shade of emerald as our mother's, but now his were liquid gold and mine were vivid, blood-red.

"Edward," I murmured quietly. I would have continued, but the unfamiliarity of my voice startled me. It was still my voice, just smoother, quieter than I'd meant it, and ringing with soft undertones similar to those of a bell. But as startled as I was, I had to know. So I looked into Edward's eyes and whispered, "What are we?"

Edward's answering smile was dazzling. He turned to Carlisle and queried lightly, "Would you like to answer this one, Carlisle?"

I turned hopefully to Carlisle, only to find him already sitting at my side. The small smile that lit up his face slipped gently as he explained quietly about how the pain in my throat and the yearning in my stomach was the thirst for blood I would always know as a vampire. He explained that in the small world of our existence, there were two types of our kind: those who would sacrifice their humanity to fulfill their thirst, and those who would maintain what humanity they could by abstaining from human blood and sustaining themselves on the blood of animals.

Looking into his outrageously beautiful face, as weary-looking and worried as it was, I knew immediately which he was. A face so marked with compassion could never belong to a being that could so easily kill innocents to satisfy its own thirsts. He would set aside his own pain to prevent others from suffering.

And so I was born to Carlisle's way of life, to the family he'd created for himself and, more importantly, for us.


End file.
